Monday 1 September 2025 · below the Index · spike
Houthis launch missile at tanker in Red Sea
Yemen's Houthi rebels launched a ballistic missile that landed near an oil tanker in the Red Sea on September 1, 2025. The Houthis claimed the target was the tanker Scarlet Ray off the Saudi port of Yanbu. The same day, a Singapore-flagged tanker collided with a Malta-flagged bulk carrier off Tanah Merah with light oil sheens reported, and a pirate attack on a chemical tanker off Togo was reported.
Peak 64.0 on Monday 1 September 2025. The shaded band is the incident window.
Where the attention came from
Public curiosity-led, both over the window and on the peak day.
Bar = share of the extra attention over the whole window; the tick marks the share on the peak day alone, where the two differ.
How unusual it was
This was above 60% of all days since 2020, and the highest since Monday 25 August 2025.
How far it spread
No vessel type moved — 0 of 6 vessel-type groups drew clearly more readers than usual.
Readers here means readers of the Wikipedia article on each vessel type — the same source as the Research signal, not news coverage — so an incident can dominate the news without moving this panel. Bars start at 1× — normal readership for that vessel type, the weeks before the incident. Grey = no clear lift. "Over time" shows each group's daily readers through the window; "All 12 articles" breaks the six groups back into their members.
How it was framed the frame glossary →
Lead frame: geopolitical pawn. Trade press was 2% of in-scope coverage — the story had left the trade press and gone mainstream. (Historical coverage is scored on headlines only.)
Acting, or acted upon
In 80% of coverage shipping was the thing acted upon rather than the actor.
How the coverage sounded
Coverage ran 88% negative overall; 2% strongly so.
Each article is scored on a five-step scale from strongly negative to strongly positive; the bar is the share of coverage at each step.
Sample of the headlines
- Blast Reported Near Liberia-Flagged Tanker Off Saudi Port Of Yanbugcaptain.com · 2025-09-01
- Houthis: 'We attacked Israeli oil tanker Scarlet Ray in northern Red Sea using a ballistic missile'israelnationalnews.com · 2025-09-01
- Yemen's Houthis launch missile at oil tanker off Saudi coast in Red Seasiasat.com · 2025-09-01
- Yemen's Houthis launch missile that lands near oil tanker in Red Seaarabnews.com · 2025-09-01
- Yemen's Houthi rebels launch missile that lands near oil tanker in Red Seayahoo.com · 2025-09-01
- Houthis Claim Missile Strike on Tanker in Red Seashipandbunker.com · 2025-09-01
Gold rule = a national or international outlet, not a trade title.
- Registered in a single underlying series only — one vessel-type article, news term or social query — and never moved the Index itself.
- The coverage panels count only articles matched to this incident specifically.
Maritime Attention Index, incident: Houthis launch missile at tanker in Red Sea, peak 64.0 on 1 September 2025. maritimeattentionindex.com/incidents/2025-houthis-launch-missile-at-tanker-in-red-sea/